The Minnesota Legislature today sent Gov. Tim Pawlenty a “lights on” bill that would keep state government operating if he and lawmakers fail to enact a budget before July 1, the start of the next fiscal year.

The House passed the bill 88-46. The Senate had approved it Monday.

The bill’s House sponsor, Majority Leader Tony Sertich, DFL-Chisholm, called it “an option of very last resort” that would avert a government shutdown. It would continue funding government services at current levels for one year.

But House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, called it the “let’s-give-up bill” that would allow lawmakers to go home without getting their budget-balancing job done.

Pawlenty said Wednesday that he would not object to a “responsible” lights-on bill, but he said the DFL bill approved would spend too much money.

Bill Salisbury has been a newspaper reporter since 1971. He started covering the Minnesota Capitol for the Rochester Post-Bulletin in 1975, joined the Pioneer Press as a general assignment reporter in 1977 and was assigned to the Capitol bureau in 1978. He was the paper's Washington correspondent from 1994 through 1999, when he returned to the Capitol bureau. Although he retired in January 2015, he continues to work at the Capitol part time.

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